


time's a fickle bitch

by C_AND_B



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 01:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18768061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C_AND_B/pseuds/C_AND_B
Summary: kara and lena get a visitor from the future. an incredibly confusing, all too familiar and yet completely unfamiliar, visitor from the future. everything goes a little wonky from there.





	time's a fickle bitch

**Author's Note:**

> honestly blame lcciyxxii and murdershegoat on tumblr for whatever the hell this is. i was just tryna reblog shit in peace.

“They’re not going to handle this well.”

“I know.”

“They’re going to have a freak-out of epic proportions.”

“Yes they are.”

“And I really have to do this?”

“Your life literally depends on it.”

“Great, well then I guess I’m ready. _Pull the lever, Kronk!_ ”

“You know it’s a button.”

“ _Rao,_ just pus-“

* * *

 

Kara loved her family. She loved Alex and her no-nonsense attitude that had people tittering nervously around her in the DEO, almost as much as her undying loyalty to them all had them trusting her more than anyone else in the world. She loved Sam and her no longer possessed mind that just left her kinder than most people Kara knew and incredibly helpful adorned in a suit, fighting crime by her side.

She loved Lena. Her best friend who always had her back, even if she didn’t know it was Kara’s back to be had. Her best friend who never let her down and fought for this family just as much as anyone else ever did - even if she was still stupid enough to think it wasn’t her family to be had. Even if she didn’t quite believe they thought of her that way.

She loved her found family, and being able to help people, and she wouldn’t change a thing.

But Kara read once that the only constant is change, and change is pretty hard to ignore when it’s a portal opening up in the middle of the DEO, followed by a girl spilling out of it face first with a bunch of expletives, and then a quick recovery into an attempted smile when she realises her fall has an audience (Kara thinks it speaks highly of how many crazy things have happened in this very building that not one of the meandering agents bats an eyelid at the display).

“Moms?”

“Alex, what-?”

“She’s not looking at me, Kara.”

“Moms,” the girl says again, words coated in relief and Kara is forced to admit that Alex is right when she finds herself pulled into a hug. A hug that also includes Lena. An incredibly tight hug that she finds herself reciprocating without much thought, meeting Lena’s eyes with clear confusion as she hugs back on reflex too. She looks like she’s about to be sick. Kara knows the feeling well.

The hug is disorientating. Being released from it isn’t much better. “Just gotta check that I’m…” The girl taps on her watch, eyes her surroundings confusedly, taps a little more, grins momentarily as a beep sounds and loses it a second later when a hologram pops out boldly displaying the date. She groans, “A week early?!”

“Who are you?” Lena asks.

“Moms?” Kara asks at the exact same time. She thinks it’s a valid question. They were both completely valid questions but Kara thinks this one is definitely the elephant in the room, definitely the one that has everyone wide-eyed and Alex reaching ever so slightly for her gun.

“I told her a thousand times I only needed a day to convince them, two days tops, not a whole week. I swear this is the last time I let a pretty girl talk me into a reckless plan - _last time this week_ ,” the girl continues to say like she hadn’t been interrupted at all.

“It’s Sunday,” Kara says.

“What is going on?” Lena questions in the same second, and okay, Kara will admit her line of interrogation was way more valid that time because she would also very much like to know that. Preferably sometime soon before her brain started to malfunction even more. She was pretty fond of her brain staying solidly inside her skull instead of melting onto the DEO floor.

“Maybe I could just fast-forward like…” Once again, like nothing at all was said, she starts pushing buttons on her wrist until the quasi-watch starts sputtering and sparking. “Great, that’s…. great. I suppose I’ll explain myself then.”

“That would be nice,” Alex speaks this time and Kara’s glad because Alex could be the voice of reason in this. The unaffected by mind-melting voice of reason to explain this blonde haired, green-eyed girl wearing the House of El sigil on her chest with complete confidence.

“I’m from 2042,”she says, and then offers nothing more like that actually made any of this make sense. Like this made her uncannily familiar bone structure make any sense. Like this made the fact that she was wearing Kara’s smile make any sense. Maybe it did. Mostly it didn’t.

“That’s not exactly an explanation.” Kara has never been more thankful for Lena than in that moment where all she has to do is nod along sagely and cross her arms in solidarity. She was always quite good at seeming menacing when she didn’t have to say anything.

“Wow, okay, you guys have not changed. I feel like I’ve missed curfew because Nora convinced me ice-cream tastes better at midnight all over again.”

“Curfew?” Kara repeats.

“Who‘s Nora?” Lena inquires and honestly Kara thinks they’re both completely off-track now, though she’s not sure she ever really knew where the track was. Was there a designated track for this kind of thing? Surely this couldn’t be a common occurrence. That would be ludicrous.

Alex steps forward into the girl’s line of sight. Kara feels a lot calmer staring at her back than she did looking in some kind of ‘Crazy Fun House’ mirror. “I’m going to need you to focus on now for a moment because you’re clearly blowing their minds. So, deep breath, and summarise.”

“My name is Lara Luthor-Danvers, I’m from 2042. A time in which some woman-slash-villain, kind of, maybe, got hold of one of the time travel devices mom created - by forcibly taking it from me during a fight - and then proceeded to decide the world would be better off without a ‘me’ in it. So she just, sorta, _whoosh_ , zoomed on back here and decided to stop the events that lead to my existence.”

_2042._

_Time travel._

_Whoosh._

“Now that was a ramble. She definitely yours,” Alex quips. Kara flicks her on the back of the head with more strength than perhaps sensible. Lena looks like she needs far more of an explanation, and maybe to start day drinking. Heavily. Kara might join her. “The events that lead to your existence?” She presses further, evidently hoping they’ll finally get somewhere with this.

“You know, when two women meet and fall in love, they work tirelessly to design a very special contraption that combines their DNA and produces a child made from that love.” That was not the somewhere Kara was hoping they’d find themselves in.

“The sarcasm is very Lena,” Sam adds this time, chuckling as Lena elbows her.

“There’s no way Supergirl and I have a child.”

“You really don’t have to do the whole secret identity thing. I know the two of you get some weird, creepy rush from it but please just call her Kara in front of me. I don’t need to be scarred anymore.” Everyone freezes for like the tenth time that conversation at the words. Kara blanches. She feels sick. Hot and cold all at once. Scared. Genuinely scared.

Lena just stares for one immeasurably long minute. Then she reaches forward. Kara braces herself for whatever might come next and still doesn’t expect the feel of Lena’s hands in her hair, scooping it into a makeshift ponytail with her fingers before dropping it with a scoff and shifting the slightest bit further away from Kara. It feels like a chasm.

Lara grimaces, “You didn’t know yet. Oops. Foot meet mouth, am I right?”

Kara ignores her in favour of staring at Lena. The only person in the room who isn’t looking at her, instead favouring staring at the wall.  Kara really needs her to look at her, needs her to believe the words coming from her mouth. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.” And now this was worse than anything Kara could have conjured up. She didn’t even get to say it herself.

“Well that’s the thing about lying isn’t it; the longer you weave the web, the harder it becomes to untangle.” That sounded about right, but Kara had to admit that somewhere along the line she wasn’t the spider anymore - she was just another fly, caught, watching everything get so much worse and simply waiting for her inevitable downfall. _This_ inevitable downfall.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Kara’s explanation falls on deaf ears but it at least gets Lena to look at her for a moment, just a second, before her gaze shifts to Lara.

“Prove you’re who you say you are.”

“Embarrassing secrets or DNA test?”

“Embarrassing secrets,” Alex and Sam say in unison.

“DNA test,” Kara and Lena fight in the opposite direction. They really all needed to get on the same page with this and Kara really didn’t want any more of her secrets coming to life - whether they had occurred in her lifetime yet or not. Future her would thank her later.

“Less fun, but okay. I will need someone to hold my hand though because I _really_ hate needles.”

* * *

 

Kara’s holding Lara’s hand and staring wordlessly at the words on the screen.

Correction: Kara’s holding _her daughters_ hand and staring wordlessly at words on the screen.

_100% Match for Lena Luthor and Kara Danvers._

“Now that we’ve answered that question, do we start the brainstorming now or after mom’s eaten something because I know it’s not just me and my super-hearing that can hear the rumbling?” Lara asks. _Their child_ asks. Their apparently _super powered child from the future_ asks. Kara was going to have an aneurysm trying to factor this all into her view of the world.

“You can just call me Kara.” That might prolong her life by another couple hours or so.

“I called you Kara once when I was angry and you cried. I’d rather not get in the habit.”

“Okay, well that’s… I cried? _No_ , that’s not the point.” That wasn’t the point. For now. That would definitely be the point later. “We can do both, I’ll go pick something up now and we can start trying to find out where this guy will appear. Big Belly Burger?” Kara aims the last part at Lena - an attempt at a peace offering, hell, an attempt to just get her to look at Kara instead of the board displaying the results. She’d already tested them three times. Kara expects a fourth might be on the way. She’s not sure why that fact hurts so much.

“Sounds good, Kar.” Alex steps into the silence and Kara takes the opportunity to fly off. She takes longer than she needs too, longer than they’re all aware she needs too. She just needs to clear her head. She needs for a second the only thing she knows to be the wind rushing past her ears and through her hair - her hair that sits in the exact same shade on someone else’s head in a building not even a minute away from her.

This was crazy. More than crazy. Kara had seen some crazy things - truly out there things. Like genetically engineered monsters, and meta-humans, and whole other planets in the galaxy, and, on that note, whole other earths running parallel to this one. She’d seen a lot. Too much. But Kara had never seen anything that blew her mind more than this. Frankly she thinks the universe should start throwing more things at her because she’ll never flinch again.

Except maybe when she returns to the DEO and finds it’s just her and Lena in the room.

“Where is everyone?”

“Lara asked to see what the DEO used to look like, but she winked at me when she left so I think she’s just wandered off so she can pretend she’s not listening in to our argument.” Of course she did. That girl knew far more than she should, and not just because she was from the future.

“We’re going to have an argument?” Kara asks, puppy dog eyes unleashed even though she knows they’re not going to work quite so well this time. Especially when Lena actually turns to her and she sees the look in her eyes - the one that isn’t anger at all like Kara expected, just resignation wrapped in far more sadness than Kara ever wished to witness, let alone be the cause of.

“You lied to me, Kara, for _years_ , and I believed every second of it because I trusted you. More than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life.” _More than she’d trusted anyone else in her life_. Usually those words would bring Kara joy. Usually she’d think about how far they’d come - the two of them who had lost everything and managed to build something else together. Usually she’d think about how much she trusted Lena in return - with her life, with her feelings, with the world. But she hadn’t trusted Lena with the one surface detail that she’d deserved to be privy to a long time ago.

She never should have lied.

She never should have _hidden_.

“I know, and I know you’ve had your trust broken too many times-“

“That’s it. I have. But I told myself I wouldn’t mistrust people because of other people’s choices in the past but this was your choice, Kara. Your choice to keep me in the dark.”

“Look I have a thousand excuses, like I promised people I wouldn’t, or I didn’t want to put you in harms way, or the more I put it off, the more terrified I became that you would never talk to me again, and I couldn’t stand living in a world where you hated me because sometimes being Kara Danvers with you is the only good part of my day. But none of them matter. All that matters is that I’m sorry. _I’m so sorry_ and I’d like to make new choices…if you’ll let me.”

Kara would make a thousand new choices if she could do this all over again. She would tell Lena who she really doubled as with her own words, at a much better time. She would trust her without question. She would believe her words and look for her when she needed help instead of running to her when it was almost too late. She would do so many things differently. But she couldn’t travel back in time to do that, so she’d have to make better choices from now on. No more lies. No more hiding. Just Kara and Lena exactly how they are, how they _should_ be.

“Every day I’m going to ask you a new question and I want an honest answer.”

“You’ll get one. Every day.”

“Good. We can start tomorrow. For now you should eat because we really can all hear your stomach.” Yeah, the smell of a double bacon cheese burger really wasn’t helping the cause.

“You got it, boss.” Kara half salutes and Lena rolls her eyes in turn, but Kara also catches sight of a smile somewhere in the motion and she’s counting that as a win.

It really felt like a win.

* * *

 

Kara’s trying to pretend it’s not weird. Some things are familiar, some things are more normal than they’ve ever been. Alex’s ‘Head Bitch in Charge’ face as she stares at the screen ahead of them. Sam shifting in her place like she was trying to get used to her new suit, her new mantle, her new life. Lena holding a tablet and writing something that Kara doesn’t even bother to try and understand because Earth science had always been confusing for her. 

What wasn’t so familiar was the girl standing beside her. They looked so similar - her and Lena – and different, and Kara could practically see the spaces in her genetic sequence that she filled instead.

“So what do you know about this woman?” Alex presses.

“It’s not her first rodeo - in time travel or villainy. She’s hot but, like, in a super annoying way and she’s kind of slippery, like one of those water snake things where the more you grab it, the more you lose hold, and you can like stick your finger in the end and it feels super weird?” Kara finds herself nodding in agreement until she takes a look around and realises everyone else is staring blankly. She packs it in quickly. “Right, not the point. The point is that she got her hands on a time travel device and starting running amuck, so I started to follow her. Eventually she got kind of annoyed that I kept foiling her plans and decided that time travel would be a lot less fun if I didn’t exist to police it.”

“And how exactly does she plan to stop you from doing all that?” Kara voices the question but she thinks it’s rather pointless. The answer was staring them in the face.

“Annoyingly she didn’t actually stop to give me her evil villain monologue, but seeing as I’m not actually born yet for a few years I figure she decided to go straight to the source and kill one of you. Probably Lena-Mom because, lets be honest, she’s the brains of the operation.” The answer was her face, and the rest of her, or the whole of Lena.

“I’m also not a Super,” Lena points out needlessly. Kara didn’t need to be reminded of that. That she knew _very_ well. She’d caught Lena on the edge of an abyss, literally and metaphorically, more times than she would like to admit. She’s never voiced the fear in the back of her head that says she could lose Lena at any time but it never shuts up. Even when she sleeps she can see Lena falling in a plane filled with chemical cargo, flying in a falling helicopter, sitting on top of the pile of bodies Lex Luthor left in his wake. Sometimes it was too much. Sometimes it was everything she needed to keep going.

“Right, yeah, of course. You have no power whatsoever, just a weak human,” Lara chuckles, rubbing the back of her neck under the watch of Lena’s curious gaze, brow cocked and mouth curved into a subtle smile. “That was overkill, I realise that, and I love you and your weak human biology.”

Lena eyes her for a moment longer before deciding to press in a far less confusing direction, “So you followed her trail and she came here?”

“Here in a week, yes.”

“I have a product launch set for a week today.”

“What kind of product?” Lara asks and Kara almost wants to shout that she knows something that she doesn’t. It was at least semi-comforting to know that she didn’t know everything about their lives. Even if she did know the most important part of them - what they amounted to.

“The kind that could very easily explode if tampered with,” Lena supplies and Kara doesn’t want to say that, that seems to be the case with most products created in National City, but National City did seem to be rife with both explosions and product tampering.

Instead she says, “Okay, so we’re cautious for the next week. Make sure that launch goes fine. Punch this timeline destroyer back into the future so Lara can make sure she gets the justice she deserves back in their time and everything will be normal again.” As normal as it possibly could be after all this, which, was, well probably not that normal at all.

“Seems simple enough,” Lara agrees. Lena stares at them both blankly.

“That’s barely a plan. Punch her back into the future? The two of you are ridiculous.” Lara looks about as affronted as Kara feels as they scoff in unison. So maybe ‘punch her back into the future’ was paraphrasing the plan a bit but Kara was definitely going to punch her, and then she was going to go back to the future so all the parts were there.

“Okay, so draw up a more complicated plan, but I’d still like to punch her for trying to kill you, and our unborn child.” Kara practically chokes out the last word, loses her conviction halfway into it because it’s the first time she’s actually said it out loud, but it’s not like it’s something she can really deny because it’s not just in appearances anymore.

She sees Lena in Lara’s sarcasm and herself in her brashness. She sees echoes of her own posture as she shifts from her suit to the civilian clothes provided for her - the true disguise Kara must have taught her to wear. She sees Lena in her half smiles and fully bright eyes and Lena in the level of poise Kara had never been able to achieve. She hears Lena in her laughter and herself in the way her tongue makes its way through certain syllables and she’s amazing.

(Just like Lena was amazing.

Kara suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about that).

“I’ll be sure to work it in,” Lena promises.

“Maybe we could make it more official over a movie later?” Kara knows she’s going to be shot down the second she asks. Honestly she knew before the sentence was even out of her mouth. She asks anyway, just so that Lena knows she’s trying, just so she can know where Lena stands on all of this.

“I think I should get an early night.” She knew. Doesn’t mean the no doesn’t sting. “We’ll talk tomorrow though; I’ll have a very important question for you, and maybe a blueberry muffin.” Kara nods and, just like that, everything seems brighter.

“Make that two?” Lara chimes in and Lena tilts her head in acknowledgement, eyeing her for a second in the same way she had all day, the same way Kara couldn’t quite figure out. It wasn’t confusion like Alex, or intrigue like Sam, or an analysis like Kara imagined was evident in her eyes, but something else. Whatever it was, Kara doesn’t manage to make it click in her head before Lena’s gaze is locked on the door, an almost imperceptible blush colouring her cheeks.

“We could watch a movie if you’d like? You’ve always tried to convince me old movies are the best,” Lara offers in the newly founded silence.

“What even is an old movie to you?” She had a feeling she was about to get really offended.

“Pretty much anything before 2020.” And there it was.

“I have so many things to show you.”

* * *

 

They’re about halfway through 13 Going on 30 when Lara huffs loudly and turns away from the screen (Kara notes happily that she must be enjoying herself enough that she takes the time to pause the movie during her action). “You should just ask.”

“What?” Kara didn’t realise there was anything she had to ask. Except, maybe, you know, literally everything. There were a lot of things to be asked and even more to be answered and that didn’t really make sense but none of this did and really there was one thing she wanted to ask more than anything. It just so happened to be the most awkward to ask too.

“Your silence is the loudest thing ever. I haven’t felt this stifled by wordlessness since I got home from my first date and found you practically vibrating on the couch. Just ask what you want to ask.”

“Lena and- Your mom and—Me and Lena. How exactly did that happen?” Kara had been trying to picture it. Trying and failing and then trying some more and equally failing.

They’d always been friends, _best friends_ , and yeah sometimes she found herself thinking about Lena more than she should (but that was just worry), and yeah she thought Lena was hot (but that was just objectively true), and yeah she maybe had an incredibly vivid dream during an emotional overload nap she took earlier (but she could not be blamed for the actions of her subconscious). But they were friends. Friends in a time where they both needed a friend more than anything else in the world.

She’s not sure how that becomes something different. She’s not sure when you realise it was never really anything different at all - that maybe your friendship had never once been anything other than a precursor to something far deeper.

“That feels like a spoiler.”

“What? You just made me ask.” She was enjoying this too much. Way too much.

“That’s totally spilling the beans on things I shouldn’t and I don’t want to mess with the timeline. I think the West-Allen’s have the monopoly on that dance with death.”

“Won’t you being here mess the timeline up anyway?”

“I was kind of planning on just erasing your memories of me and filling your minds with some event so you don’t question the missing time.” Lara says the words so candidly, so surely, that Kara is almost sure it’s a joke, except she doesn’t laugh at all. “What? You always told me honesty was important. I can’t mess the timeline up; I could accidentally erase my own existence or cause some major catastrophic event.” It was a fair point. She doesn’t even want to think about the drama she had to listen too after Barry changed the timeline and gender-switched Diggle’s baby.

“But if you’re going to erase it all anyway, couldn’t you just tell me?”

“Time’s a fickle bitch. It’s more confusing than you realise and thus incredibly difficult to play with in someone’s mind. The less you know the better. And anyway, we both know you’ll figure it out.” Lara gestures grandly to herself and Kara can’t help but feel an old swell of pride bubble up with the laughter. “Truth be told, what I hear, from _literally everyone_ , is you and mom were always inevitable. You just had to get your heads out of your asses and see what was right in front of you.” _Right in front, right in front, just like_ … Kara groans.

“You going to erase her knowing I’m Supergirl. I’m going to have to deal with her hating me twice. This is the worst day of my life.” How was she actually supposed to do this? That complete look of betrayal but on repeat? This absolutely wasn’t fair. Did the universe not owe her some leeway at this point or did it just enjoy shitting on her over and over again?

“I thought the first time you laid eyes on your child was supposed to be magical?”

“Not when the magical child has a blabbermouth.”

“Perhaps not my finest hour,” Lara admits. It’s an understatement.

Kara goes silent for a moment, finger ready to press play on the film but her mind not quite in the same place yet because all she can think about is, “We’re happy though? All of us?”

“Unfathomably.”

“Good. That’s…good.”

“So you really hadn’t considered riding the train to Luthor station yet?” Kara repeats, she was enjoying this too much. And she definitely had been spending too much time with Alex because this was not normal mother-child interaction and she really didn’t need this today because she hadn’t. Yesterday she really _truly_ hadn’t thought about it at all. Today she literally couldn’t stop.

“ _Oh my Rao_ , just watch the film.”                         

“You totally have.” Kara blushes and hits play on the TV. This time she was totally not letting Alex anywhere near her child - mind wipe be damned, she’d remember that. “You should just say that too, you know. Think of it as a trial run for the real thing.”

A trial run?

That sounded terrifying.

* * *

 

“So you have a kid, huh? With Lena Luthor.” She was waiting for this, waiting for the moment Alex blew the lid on her silence, waiting for Alex to turn her curious looks into searching words. She supposed it made sense to corner her in a room with only one exit, completely made of windows and full of cameras so she would definitely get the blame if she decided to speed through the ceiling. Not that those facts completely took the idea of the table for Kara.

“It would appear so.” Kara aims for casual. She really hopes it comes out casual. She knows without a doubt that it does not come out casual at all.

“She’s kind of great.” Lara was certainly something. Kara’s not sure that great was really enough. She was wickedly smart, and funny, and way too insightful for her own good. She was the best parts of Kara and Lena mixed into one and just the concept of that made Kara feel a little fuzzy.

“She kind of is,” Kara agrees, then sighs - that annoying wistful kind that she hadn’t felt like indulging in, in quite some time now. “They both are.”

“I didn’t realise you guys were…” Alex pauses, shakes her head with a small chuckle. “Sam says I’m blind not to have noticed but I think the look on both of your faces yesterday says I’m not the only one who needs to up the prescription on their glasses.”

“I thought we were just friends. I mean, I’d never had a friend quite like her before but I kind of just put that down to the fact that my best friends had always been guys, you know? There was Kenny, and James, and Winn. That’s all I knew, but then I suppose none of those relationships were really normal either. Apparently I’m destined to live through continuous best friend love confessions.” She just hoped this one went less awkwardly, like yeah, it obviously ultimately turned out okay but she hoped the confession wasn’t hopelessly embarrassing - like she accidentally said it in front of a group of people, or someone else spilled the beans for her, or she got caught with her hand on-

“At least this one is mutual. Like, have a kid and retire to your beach facing porch, mutual.” That sounded nice, _more than nice_ , but also…

“I’m scared.”

“Feelings can be scary.” Alex was always a lot more fluent in emotions than she gave herself credit for. Even if the statement is blunt. It didn’t make it any less true.

“This feels like Back to the Future meets Terminator meets Parent Trap and I’ve suddenly got all these thoughts racing through my head that I’ve never had before and they’re all sort of, like, fighting for a front row seat and I had a sex dream about Lena yesterday and I was _not_ going to admit that to anyone but it sort of just came out just now and I can’t suck it back in so I’m just gonna roll with it and tell you that it was amazing but it’s also made me freak out more because this is real. This isn’t some trick being played on us all by some fifth-dimensional imp, or lies implanted in our heads by some telepathic bitch. This is real. My feelings are real and I feel like I’m suffocating under the weight of them.”

“That was a lot.” _Yes. Yes it was_. “Falling for someone is the easiest thing in the world, Kara. It may seem like a process but there’s always that one second where you think _shit_ and you can’t turn back, which is why it’s also the hardest, because there isn’t any warning. There’s just _it._ And I know this whole thing is made worse by the fact that there’s a whole other secret you need to make up for but I promise you that you don’t need to be afraid to feel. You deserve to feel.”

Kara falls into Alex’s arms when she opens them.

She’s yet to find a problem that an Alex hug can’t solve.

“Hey, Aunt Alex, can you show me— _oh_ you guys are crying in here. Sorry.” Lara winces.

“Only your mom is crying. Don’t lump me in on that.” Alex wipes a tear surreptitiously, winking at Kara as she tuts at her for being a bold-faced liar. “What did you want?”

“I realised we missed the armoury on the tour yesterday and I was wondering if I could see it now?” Lara asks and honestly Kara thinks Alex is on the verge of letting another tear fall when she hears the words. She had some really weird hobbies.

“Girl after my own heart. Follow me.” They leave to the soundtrack of Kara’s bemused laughter as Lena crosses their path on the way in, eyeing Kara strangely but smiling nonetheless as she holds out her hand in a peace offering.

“I brought you your muffin,” she announces, placing a freshly baked, blueberry filled angel in Kara’s hand and honestly Kara could kiss both her _and_ the muffin. She doesn’t allow herself to dwell to long on that particular thought. “Where’s Lara going?”

“Conveniently wanted a tour of something. _Again_.” Kara was sure she rather enjoyed leaving the two of them alone to get awkward, but she was paying for that now as Kara takes both of the muffins in Lena’s hands and practically inhales them in the same second. “Thank you. Do you… do you have a question for me?” She’s not entirely sure why she brings it up. Except that she is. She’s hoping that the earlier Lena is reminded of her lie, the more of the day she’ll have left to convince her to forgive her.

That, and if she spends the day wondering what the question will be, she’ll start going to the worst case scenarios and slowly (very quickly) lose her mind.

“Yesterday you said you were going to tell me. When? When exactly were you planning on doing it?”

“It was never really a plan. Maybe it should’ve been, might have actually worked better. I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks. You told me that Supergirl was there for you and Kara Danvers wasn’t and all I wanted to do was tell you it was me, it was _always_ me. But I couldn’t find the words.” No words seemed enough. They still didn’t. She liked to think it would’ve been soon, that she would’ve finally stopped listening to other people’s doubts and building her own from their instructions and just done the right thing. But maybe she wouldn’t have. She probably wouldn’t have.

“Don’t I pay you to find words?”

“It’s a little different being a reporter trying to uncover truths, to being an alien who was told to hold onto your secrets like a super-powered vault.” Kara never felt more hypocritical than when she was preaching that the truth was the most important thing, that people deserved to see behind the curtain of those who held power over them. She never cared so much about that feeling as when the words were aimed at Lena. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know, but you did.” It’s a simple admittance and an obvious truth, but Kara feels it slap her across the face as harshly as a kryptonite encrusted palm. It’s not meant as an attack. There’s no real heat in the words. Just resigned honesty. Kara thinks it would hurt less if she was aiming to cause pain.

“I’m sorry.” Those words were destined to be overused. They arguably already were.

“I know that too, and we’ll be okay. It’ll just take time.”

“I’ve got time. For you, I’ve got all the time in the world,” Kara admits softly, loses herself in the depth of Lena’s eyes as she stares back in silence. Kara’s said things like that before. So has Lena for that matter. _Do you have a minute? For you, always_. _Got time for lunch? I’d never miss lunch with you. Can I borrow you for a second? Steal me for as many seconds as you want_. It feels different now. Weighted. All because of the mirror-image of them Kara catches sight of, grinning over Lena’s shoulder in the doorway. “Didn’t your moms ever tell you not to eavesdrop?”

“Actually I get told to eavesdrop all the time - super hearing is fantastic for recon.”

“You’re a smartass,” Kara tells her, turning to fix her gaze on Lena. “That’s your fault.”

She scoffs, “It’s so easy to blame the Luthor.”

“You need to think of a new comeback because when we get married, that’s not gonna fly anymore,” Kara jokes. They both freeze. _Married_. The word settles in the air, the idea settles itself into Kara’s mind. They were going to be married and, apparently just like most things these days; Kara couldn’t help but start imagining it.

Nerves as she waits at the altar. Ones that abate the second she lays eyes on Lena because she has nothing to be nervous about when she knows this is it for her, that she’ll always have Lena by her side.

Tears as she watches Lena, adorned in a white dress, walk with more poise than is honestly fair down the aisle - practically gliding, like the floor wasn’t quite worthy of the touch of her foot. Kara’s not sure it is. She thinks most things are unworthy of Lena Luthor (herself included most days). Warmth as she reaches out her hand with certainty and finds it caught without hesitation by the woman standing by her side. Hope and kind words. Love and soft lips.

It doesn’t feel odd to her. It doesn’t feel strange to know that that’s what her future holds, that Lena is what her future holds, what her future _is_.

“Maybe you could both not pass out before we’ve made the composite sketch of the evil lady trying to kill you and, by proxy, me.” The moment shatters before Kara can fully capture it. That doesn’t mean it won’t still haunt her later when she tries to sleep. And the night after. And the next.

“Right, that’s—“ Kara clears her throat, picks up the tablet closest to her and pretends she has any real idea how to actually work it. “Let’s start that.”

* * *

 

Here’s the thing - Kara knows she shouldn’t listen into conversations. She knew objectively (and personally) that people deserved to have their secrets and that, for the most part; they were no business of hers if they weren’t of the nefarious variety. She knew subjectively that there were some things she definitely didn’t want to ever have to hear - like intimate things, and other intimidate things and then some really, super intimate things - she’d learned that the hard way.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t falter sometimes.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t sometimes scan a building for someone, or a couple of people, that she’d misplaced in the madness, and find them having a conversation that definitely wasn’t meant for her ears but was going to find them anyway because she had no self-control.

Literally none.

So she stands in the middle of the DEO, with her arms crossed and her eyes fixed forward at the screen displaying all the information they knew about this time-travelling monster, taking in exactly none of it at all as she focuses on something else entirely.

That something else being Lena’s uncomfortable cough as she attempts to build herself up enough to say something - Kara knew it well, knew that she never used it at the office, or with the board, or when she was giving a talk to hundreds of people. No. She always saved it for intimate settings, saved it for questions she was scared to ask, the kind she’d spent too much time mentally preparing her script for and hoping the other person would follow the unspoken words on the unwritten page.

“I know you can’t tell us specifics but, I just… am I a good mom?”

There’s a small laugh, abruptly cut off and then there’s a pause… A shift, the sound of an uncertain footstep. A single one. Bravery gained and lost in a second. Then, “You’re a _great_ mom.”

“Really?” The word hits like a punch to the gut. Every single molecule of air from Kara’s lungs just pushed out in one single motion, with one single question, because it’s the most incredulous Kara has ever heard Lena sound, has ever heard _anyone_ sound. It’s quiet, and half-mumbled, and fully broken, and all Kara wants is to run up there and wrap her arms around her, protect her from the world, from her own fears and disbelief in herself.

For three days Kara had wondered so much about what their lives must be like in years to come and, with a single word, she knows that Lena hasn’t thought of anything beyond this for a single second.

“One of the two best moms I’ve ever known,” Lara jokes, Lena laughs and Kara can practically hear the tension lift from the moment slightly along with the sound

“That’s still really weird to hear.”

“What’s weird is seeing you guys like this.”

“Young?” Lena supplies.

“Confused,” Lara corrects with a huffed half-chuckle. “The two of you are so… _solid_ where I’m from; it’s strange for you to be like this.”

“Make no mistake - Kara Danvers always has and always will confuse me. If only because she bothers with me at all.”

“You know, she once told me the exact same thing about you. Or she will do.”

“The wonders of time travel,” Lena muses, her words followed up by the sound of a light slap. “Hey, wash your hands before you eat.” There was food? Kara needed to get up there quick.

“Now _that’s_ more familiar.” They both laugh.

Maybe she could give them another minute.

* * *

 

It’s a bad idea. That much is evident. Kara shouldn’t be standing outside of Lena’s apartment after a long day at the DEO but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. She blames all the comments Lara kept making - half ‘spoilers’ of the future and all of the rest of her words about Kara being scared and practice runs and other stupid things that she couldn’t make herself stop repeating.

So, yes, it is a bad idea but Kara also had her hands full with wine and takeout so she feels like she’s at least softening the blow a little bit. If anything she could make sure Lena ate, even if the food got to go inside her apartment and Kara didn’t. It was worth a shot.

The nerves hit harder when Lena opens the door. Not because Lena eyes her with an uncertainty that she never has upon finding Kara on her doorstep, or because she doesn’t immediately move aside for Kara to enter like she usually would, or because she doesn’t say a word, simply waits for Kara to explain herself in the silence. Well, a little bit all of that, but mostly because Lena’s wearing pyjama shorts and Kara’s jumper that she lost a few weeks back and she can’t set her mind straight enough for two seconds to figure out if she thinks she looks adorable or insanely hot. Who was she kidding? It was both. It was so definitely both.

“You can tell me to leave. Just one word and I’ll go, but I think you have more questions than you know what to do with and I’m happy to let you go over your allowance just this once,” Kara blurts and then just waits as Lena appraises her for a second.

“Is that from Mrs Wu’s place?” She points to the bag hanging limply from Kara’s fingers. All Kara can do is nod mutely in response. “Then come on in.”

“Sorry to drop in on you. It’s just—“ Kara cuts herself off with a deep breath, a humourless chuckle. _No. No more of that_. “You know I was going to say something about how I wanted to check on you, talk things through, and I do. But in the interest of being completely honest from now on, things have been a bit hectic the past few days and I just- I missed you.” Sure they’d been around each other but there was a definite level of avoidance mixed into busy schedules and Kara didn’t like it.

She missed quick glances across the office and wordless conversations with eyes, cramming lunches into small schedule gaps and sharing stupid stories that really weren’t worth rehashing but were told in detail anyway. Gentle hugs and vaguely brushed fleeing hands. Everything.

“I’ve missed you too,” Lena admits, pushing Kara’s favourite egg rolls into her hands without room for debate as she leads her to the couch. Kara takes both things as a win. “So I can really ask you anything I’d like and you’ll be an open book?” Lena rechecks. She’d yet to actually ask anything too invasive so far. Kara was sure she was attempting to lull her into a false sense of security - Lena always seemed to enjoy keeping her on her toes.

“Kara Danvers for Dummies, open at page one, ready for business.” Kara briefly wonders how long it will take her to regret this arrangement, regret those very words. It turns out the answer is miraculously about three whole seconds.

“What if I asked about how you lost your virginity?” Lena’s face is the picture of innocence as she sucks up some noodles and Kara, on her part, is sure she inhales an entirely whole egg roll into her lungs. Lena hands her water as she pats her back but there’s no mistaking the way she laughs the whole time. Her laughter is musical. Kara is an eternal idiot. “I’m sorry, that was a joke. I just wanted to see how you’d react. Didn’t think it would be that good.”

“I suppose I deserved that,” Kara acquiesces, bemoaning the perfectly good egg roll lost to the cause. “Do you actually want to know?” It’s an awkward story - not the worst, not the best - including a concussion and Kara never looking the boy in the eye again. Basically it’s full of hundreds of reasons that Lena would find it just about the funniest thing ever.

She’s willing to tell it just to make her laugh.

“I think I’ll save that for another time. The reaction is too funny to only enjoy once.” Kara rolls her eyes but okay, she kinda deserves that one too. “We should probably start simple if I have unlimited backstage access forever more - basic facts, like, how old are you?” Kara thinks Lena doesn’t expect anything beyond the usual twenty-nine that Kara offers when asked. She thinks Lena truly believes this is started from the easiest point, giving Kara a chance to prove she was honest about some things. Unfortunately this wasn’t one of those things she was entirely honest about.

“Technically I’m fifty-three.”

“So you’re a cougar,” Lena deadpans and Kara chokes again. It’s a noodle this time. She figures it would actually be a rather delicious way to die, choking on Lo Mein, but she’d rather not have to float around as a ghost watching Lena explain how she accidentally killed Kara by making too many jokes about her sexual experiences and preferences.

“ _Jesus, Lena_.”

“Sorry, you’re just too easy.”

“That’s what she said.”

“ _Kara Danver_ s!” Lena says with a gasp that’s definitely half-fake and a laugh that’s completely, heart-flutteringly, real. “Is suspended aging a power of yours then? Should I expect to be old and wrinkly next to a complete babe?” Lena’s still joking, still got laughter in her eyes and a small smile on her lips but the image hits Kara in a way she can’t explain. It’s a horrible idea – Lena almost gone and Kara left with the notion that she’ll have to learn how to live without her.

She’s glad the answer is no, even if the true explanation of her youthful state brings horrible memories in itself. That time meant her future could be bright. It meant she existed at the same time as everyone who was important to her, everyone she loved, including Lena. Especially Lena.

“My pod got knocked off-course on my way to earth into a place called the Phantom Zone. I was there for twenty-four years in a sleep that wasn’t really a sleep. I didn’t age a day. Not psychically. The emotional toll wasn’t great.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that.” Lena’s hand slides next to Kara’s. She doesn’t hold it, doesn’t squeeze in reassurance or thread their fingers for comfort. She just rests it there, her little finger gently grazing the edge of Kara’s downturned palm resting on the back of the couch. The warmth of it runs down Kara’s spine.

“We all have trauma,” Kara dismisses.

“Doesn’t make yours any less important,” Lena pushes, gaze not backing down, and Kara feels the way the words settle in her head like rocks at the bottom of the ocean, the way they nestle their way into the sand and sit, ready to remain. She slides her hand more solidly beneath Lena’s.

“Thank you.”

Lena nods, brushes it off with a new line of questioning. “What’s the first thing you did when you realised you had powers? Not accidentally, like the absolute first thing you chose to do?” Kara feels the blood blooming on her cheeks way before she realises she’s been caught as Lena gasps excitedly and puts the food she never seemed quite that interested in down to turn more intently towards her. “Well if you didn’t need to tell me before.”

“I froze all of Alex’s clothes,” Kara admits, Lena’s already laughing at the image but she can’t shake the need to explain herself just a little. “We hadn’t quite put our differences aside then yet. I heard her call me a weirdo to Eliza and decided I would show her weird. I went a little overboard.”

“Nice to know even gods can be petty.” It’s a flippant remark from Lena but it makes her flinch. It makes her feel tense, and heavy, and unsure of herself. She doesn’t think a god would feel any of those things. She doesn’t think gods should exist in ordinary life. Too much power. Too little care. Too much hanging on their every decision, every move, every action. The very idea was stifling.

“I never liked being called a god. All I ever wanted to be was like everyone else, and I am, for the most part, beyond my ability to freeze every one of Alex’s leather jackets at once. It scares me to think that I hold so much power over people’s lives. Don’t get me wrong, knowing I can save people is amazing but knowing that one wrong move on my behalf means they could lose their life never sits quite right in my chest,” Kara admits because she thinks of anyone would understand the pressure of expectations, it’s Lena. And because honesty shouldn’t only exist when asked for – sometimes you just had to share on your own terms.

“It’s unfair that you have so much weight on your shoulders, but if I were to trust anyone with that power, it would be you - the girl who tips more if she hears someone else in the restaurant being mean to the waiter.” Kara mimics Lena’s soft smile, until it shifts to a smirk and she feels a light sense of dread settle in instead. “But you should know your arms are pretty godly.”

“How much wine have you had?” Kara asks, picks up the bottle anyway - it’s essentially no lighter than when she brought it in, the liquid line still lingering towards the neck of the bottle. She turns her eyes back to Lena, catches sight of the way she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, feels a little bit like she might pass out. _How had she not noticed this before_? The way her body reacts to every motion, no matter how small. The way Lena makes her feel like a storm is rolling through her body. “You’ve never flirted with me before,” she continues bluntly because why beat around the bush - they were pushing through unknown territory now.

“You’re wrong. You just never noticed and eventually I figured you weren’t interested.” The _but now_ goes unspoken. The _but now_ their child was here. The _but now_ it’s obvious that Kara must feel something, even if she hasn’t fully figured out. Lena doesn’t know _now_ Kara thinks she just might’ve.

“Apparently I’m a little obtuse.”

“I’ll fill your entire apartment with flowers next time. Just so you can be sure of my _intentions_.”

Kara swallows, mimics the prosody, _“Intentions?_ ”

Kara once got sucked into competing in a Spelling Bee when she was younger - Eliza told her putting herself out there would help her make friends, help her fit in. She doesn’t really know why she chose spelling; she was always terrible at it. Except that’s the exact reason why she chose it. Struggle was normal, not understanding was normal.

_Intention_ was one of the first words she was asked to spell. She’d done it without struggle but she felt like she was struggling now. Against the flames licking at her lungs, and her neck, and every inch of her skin because that word had never sounded so hot. It had never sounded so full of _intent_. In that moment, as Lena lightly drags her fore- and middle-finger along her arm, revelling in the hairs they make stand on end with a single touch, all Kara can think is that she wants to here every detail of this hypothetical plan, wants to drown in the theoretical schemes.

Then Lena swiftly removes her hand.

Cut the tension in the next second.

“Why Lara?” She asks and Kara’s first response is to take the glass Lena just picked up from her hand and chug its entire contents. The wine won’t do much to her but it at least does something for the sudden unquenchable dryness of her throat. Lena doesn’t say anything when Kara passes it back; just reaches for the bottle to fill it back up and waits for an answer to her question and _right_ , _Lena actually had a question to be answered_.

“Nia thinks it’s our Brangelina.” Lena looks blank. Kara almost wishes she could have been so oblivious when Nia squealed it at her the second she got wind of the situation, instead she almost fell off her chair (in truth, she did fall, but she also caught herself before she hit the floor so she felt like it didn’t completely count). “Lena plus Kara equals Lara.”

Lena groans, “I really hope we didn’t do that.”

“Me too.” _Rao she truly hoped not_. “It was my aunt’s name, back on Krypton, Kal-El’s mother. We were never the closest but I always admired her. Eliza reminded me a lot of her when I came to Earth – it’s half the reason I trusted her, half the reason I think Kal trusted me with her. So maybe it was that, or maybe you just forced us to pick an ‘L’ to keep with your weird family tradition. Honestly I’m surprised you even marry me, sitting here boldly with a ‘K.” Lena attempts to push her; Kara doesn’t move a single muscle. It’s endearing that she tries again.

“Don’t make me change my mind,” Lena threatens.

“I wouldn’t dare,” Kara assures. She allows her body to shift with Lena’s push when it next comes, slides a little closer than she originally was on the return. Lena gasps when she notices how close they are. Kara pretends she doesn’t hear it, pretends _real hard_ , but she’s also ridiculously aware of how much she can’t _unhear_ the sound and how stupid she is for not noticing this before.

Not noticing them before.

Kara feels eyes on her lips, almost as surely as an actual touch. It’s electric, and terrifying, and she fakes a yawn because she doesn’t know what else to do in that moment.

"I think I have one more answer in me before I head home.

Lena doesn’t hesitate, “What do you see in me?”

“I don’t understand.” Kara understands the question perfectly well, understands completely what she’s being asked. She just doesn’t understand how Lena could ask the question - how she wouldn’t already know the answer, the plethora of answers. She supposed that seemed to be the curse of Lena Luthor: destined to be great and yet never be able to see her own worth.

“I break every person I touch. I’m good with things, with tech, theoretical ideas. But people… people I mess up time and again. Except apparently I don’t mess up you and I can’t figure out why you, _kind, noble you_ , of all people decided to stick around.”

“I see a woman who has had everything taken from her on more than one occasion, has had people attempt to destroy her time and again. A woman who has been lied to and manipulated and hurt and has done nothing but become stronger, _kinder_ , in the face of it all. I see _you._ Not your name, not your family, not your fear that you’re not good enough or that you’ll break something that can’t be fixed. I just see you. I’m hoping now, with everything in the open, you can just see me too.” In the end, that’s all Kara’s every really wanted, to be seen. To be understood.

“I’ve always seen you, Kara. Both of you. I just need to slot the pieces together.”

“I’m here if you need any help.”

“You always are.”

(She always would be.

No matter what happens, she swears that would always be true).

* * *

 

“I have a few questions,” Lara boldly states as she flies through the window of Kara’s apartment and all Kara can at first think is that she maybe understands why people don’t enjoy her dropping in unannounced that way so much (and by people she obviously means Lena when she’s angry with her - despite the fact that she knows that particular balcony didn’t exist on that particular building until Lena stationed herself in that particular office. Almost like she was daring Kara to land there).

Not that Kara flinches at the entrance. She heard Lara coming a mile off, doesn’t even bother looking up from the article she’s typing up at her kitchen counter because apparently your child coming to visit from the future wasn’t a viable excuse to get out of work.

That, and she was kind of in need of the distraction.

“Yeah? Get in line.”

“Okay, that’s fair enough. But I can’t answer yours, whereas you can answer mine without repercussions and I figure I deserve to get something out of this trip too,” Lara posits, grabbing the bag of chips from beside Kara and crunching on them obnoxiously. Kara hates that it’s entirely endearing and all too familiar - Lara eats with the same distinct lack of grace that Kara had been accused of having on more than one occasion.

“You get to not be erased from existence,” Kara points out.

“That’s… also fair. But I have some questions that you’ve always refused to answer, but I figure if you’re not really the you that I know yet, maybe you’ll answer them now.”

“Ever think there’s maybe a reason I never answered? Or that I deserve privacy?” Kara asks, closing the lid of her laptop securely, pushing it away from her slightly. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the kind of conversation she should pay half attention too.

“You once took my bedroom door off its hinges when I had a boy round to study so that nothing ‘untoward’ would happen. Privacy was abolished between us long ago.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”

“I think mom got you amped up about it. She stood holding the screws as you removed them.” That made more sense. Oddly it was a nice thought. Her and Lena as a team. Apparently a privacy destroying team but a team nonetheless and she’s sure they had their reasons. Or Kara’s sure Lena had her reasons and then either got Kara panicked about it with all her what if theories, or simply confused her with one of those practically sinful cocked brow, smirk combinations until she was confused enough to comply without question.

“She does have a knack for over thinking.” Kara supposed that came with the territory. Lena’s family ate breakfast like it was a game of chess. Every move was part of some grander diabolical scheme - she supposed that kind of upbringing was bound to play with your mind.

“Will you tell me about my grandmother?” So apparently she had just decided to go for it. Maybe Kara wasn’t the disciplinarian of her two parents or maybe she was just betting on the fact that she hadn’t learned that signature ‘ _don’t you dare_ ’ mom stare yet.

“Eliza? Did you not get to m-- Did she d--“ Kara can’t finish the sentence. Either of the sentences. Can’t bear the thought even in theory. She hadn’t considered that part of time in all this. The fact that it took people away just as easily as it gave them.

“No! Grandma’s great. Still making amazing apple pies. I mean your birth mother. You don’t really talk about her; you don’t talk much at all about where you came from. You always said when I got older but, I got older, and you still didn’t tell me. And like, I could probably learn most things from the fortress but it’s not the same, you know? I wanna know what it was like for her. _For you_.”

Kara had always wanted someone who would understand. She always wanted someone who would know what she meant when she talked about the crimson hour or the way stars never quite looked the same on earth. But she came to the conclusion a long time ago, after Clark has mispronounced too many words and asked her not to call him Kal-El anymore, that no one would ever quite understand like she did. That she could try, and try, and try - she could compete in spelling bees, and read the dictionary cover to cover, and learn as many languages as she could think of, and give words and voices to other people in her work - but she would never find the words she needed to explain everything she once had. Everything she lost.

So she gave up.

Except maybe that wasn’t quite fair - to her, or to anyone else.

Maybe the only way to let something out was to let somebody in.

“Your grandmother was… amazing, like so many people on Krypton, despite their flaws. Krypton was a rather flawed place too, much like earth. Too many people with power refusing to share knowledge and letting things crumble because they were too proud to admit they didn’t know how to fix it. Too proud to admit there was a problem in the first place.

It was also beautiful. The towering buildings of Argo City, and the marvels of Kandor, and Kryptonopolis where your Uncle Clark was born… Your grandmother loved Krypton - knew all these useless facts about it. Dad said it was what drew him to her in the first place - her insatiable need to know everything. She used to recite them to me when I couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I can still hear her saying them over and over again when I close my eyes at night.”

(Sometimes it kept her up.

Sometimes it was the only thing that allowed her to dream).

“She sounds like fun.” It’s a dry sort of joke but there’s a wetness to Lara’s voice that tells Kara her answer meant more than she could ever know.

“When you get back tell your mom, _tell me_ , that the Oregus plant is one of the largest flowering plants native to Krypton and that it can grow higher than twenty inches when under the correct conditions. Tell her that she won’t forget things because she shared them with someone else, that it’ll only strengthen the memory.

“You mean the secret to getting the answer from you is just spewing encyclopaedic knowledge? I have wasted so many years of guilt trips and perfectly baked cookies.”

“Oh, I was getting cookies out of it? No wonder I wasn’t telling you.” Lara follows Kara’s lead in laughing, the tension draining from her shoulders along with her chuckles.

“Thank you,” Lara says sincerely.

“Just because you didn’t get to see it, doesn’t mean it’s not where you’re from too,” Kara replies, sincerity mirrored, finds herself tackled in hug the second the words are out, and _yeah_ , she was definitely Kara’s kid. And she was kinda awesome.

* * *

 

“We can make the future - _today_.” Well that felt a little on the nose. Kara wonders if Lena thinks the same thing as she says the words, wonders how her speech about advanced tech somehow managed to accidentally predict the events of the last few days 

Kara looks over at their future here today. She’s psyching herself up at the exit opposite Kara, watching the door and doing a weird sort of bouncing dance like she was limbering up for something. It was adorable how stupid she looked. Kara wondered if that’s how the DEO agents looked at her - undertrained but excited (kind of like a puppy).

“Any sight of her yet?” Kara whispers, hears the negative from her comms and spoken back under Lara’s breath. “It has to be soon, Lena doesn’t usually allow more than like five questions from the press. They start losing scientific basis around the fourth; I think she gets a kick out of allowing the fifth just to see what ridiculous rumour is going around next.”

“Miss Luthor, is it true that you helped your brother obtain the kryptonite to hurt Superman?” And there it was - the inevitable stupid question. Kara takes comfort in the fact that Lena smirks as she replies that she wasn’t even old enough to drive at the time it happened. At least she could always find the funny side in it.

Kara, on the other hand, was mentally adding the woman onto the punch list in the plan. Right under the woman who appears seemingly out of nowhere. A small blue rift in the air on the other side of the room and then she’s just standing there - no more than twenty years old and looking wholly unmenacing until she delivers a punch that has Lara staggering back a few feet.

Kara’s by her side in a second, helping her stand and attempting to deliver her own punch to the woman. She drops out of the way just before it strikes, delivers a sweep to Kara’s legs that has her sprawled on the floor, momentarily gasping for air. Lara gets her then, and as Kara jumps back up, she finds her daughter swinging for a punch that sends the woman back more than a few feet - hard enough that Kara honestly thinks if punching someone into the future actually were a thing, that would definitely be the punch to do it.

It’s a lot easier than she thought it would be honestly. She watches Alex slap cuffs on her and hoard her away and all she can think is it was easy. A hell of a lot easier than the emotional turmoil she had to endure throughout the week because this woman decided to screw around with time and everyone’s lives. Probably easier than it all should be. Not that Kara was complaining, except that she was also kind of complaining because she was hoping to get her own future punch in.

Her glare as the woman is pulled away would have to be enough.

Ultimately nothing is more satisfying than the hug Lena pulls her into when she makes it to their side. The one she tugs Lara in for too without a second thought. It makes Kara think of the hug Lara first pulled them into when she arrived - tight, and warm, and _glad_ \- but this time, when Lena’s eyes meet hers over Lara, there’s no confusion, only a sense of calm, and Kara lets her hand do exactly what she felt it tugging to do the last time.

Lena intertwines their fingers when Kara takes her hand.

She feels like everything will be fine.

Even if their memories were hours away from being wiped.

* * *

 

_Hours away from being wiped. Hours away from being wiped. Hours away from being wiped._  

The thought repeats itself in her head from the second it occurs. No matter how hard she tries to ignore it. No matter how hard she tries to shake it out - metaphorically and literally. No matter how much she tells herself it was inevitable, that it will be fine. It just keeps repeating, and repeating, and repeating. It only stops when something else occurs to her.

She doesn’t have hours.

She only has minutes.

“So this is it,” Kara says, pointing out the obvious because how else are you supposed to start a conversation with your future daughter that’s about to time-travel. Again. It’s not exactly like there was a handbook on how to handle this. Although maybe there was. She should’ve asked Barry.

“This is it,” Lara repeats, grinning when Kara decides to stop being awkward and just pull her in for a hug. One that she knows would be way too tight for anyone else. One that she can’t wait to give again. “Sorry for scaring you so much by just randomly dropping in with the whole, you’re in love with your best friend and have a child in the not-so-distant future, thing.”

“It didn’t seem so scary in the end and at least you weren’t a total nightmare.”

“You’re lucky fourteen year old me didn’t come. Puberty made me a raging bitch.” Yeah, that would’ve sucked. Dealing with that once was probably enough.

“It’s weird to think we won’t see you for a long time and you’re going to see us in like two seconds. Maybe just with some grey hair.”

Lena appears by their side with a scoffed, “I’m never letting my hair go grey,” before pulling Lara in for her own hug. Kara feels the way her heart practically begs to be free of her chest at the sight of it. The way Lara is a little taller than Lena, even with her heels, but bends into the hug so she can tuck herself into her mother’s arms. The soft circles Lena rubs on her back that Kara knows from personal experience is like the best feeling in the world. The look she gives when she pulls back and brushes some of Lara’s hair behind her ear so gently she bets she hardly felt it. “Be safe, darling. Make sure that one gets the justice she deserves.”

She being the girl stuffed in the corner - still cuffed but eerily calm as she mostly just alternated between checking her watch and attempting to file her nails on her jeans. What kind of super-powered, evil time-traveller didn’t even have a suit? Was there no flair in the future?

“Justice is my middle name,” Lara deadpans. Kara and Lena freeze. “ _Rao_ , not really. You guys aren’t that terrible. It’s Kieran - after you, and also because you insisted that ‘K’ names had to be brought into the tradition after something mom said to you once - never mind that it’s totally a boy’s name.”

“Okay but it’s not Justice so I think that’s a win,” Kara points out. A win for them all. That would’ve been a fact she was happy to forget.

Lara chuckles, steps back slowly and grabs the prisoner by the arm. She seems to go in slow motion for a second as her hand rises to press a few buttons on her wristwatch. A few buttons that were going to change everything all over again. A few buttons that make Kara’s realisation kick itself up a few notches. A few more buttons that meant…

_Seconds away from being wiped. Seconds away from being wiped. Seconds away from being wiped._

“Wait! Wait. Can we just have a moment?” Everyone freezes. Kara can practically see the laughter in Lara’s eyes at the outburst, even as she nods, hand dropping back down to her side as she watches Kara lead Lena slighting away, to the corner of the room. _Now or never right_. “She’s going to erase our minds. Completely wipe this past week from memory and I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to figure this out without her, but I have it figured out now, and there’s something I really want to do before I forget that this weight in my chest when I’m around you means what it does.”

“What does it mean?” Lena asks timidly.

“I thought it was guilt, or the panic of hiding from you, or the fear of losing you and it is. It’s all of those things - but I only feel any of them because I like you, romantically, and I think it’s close to being more.” _Close._ Lena smiles at her word vomit. _So very close._

“Then do the thing,” Lena prompts.

Now or never.

_Now or never._

Kara kisses Lena and it’s like suddenly everything makes sense. It’s like someone finally turned on the lights, like someone finally gave her the key to the code, like someone found the last piece of the puzzle she’d been looking for, for years. Kara kisses Lena and it’s like her blood rushes and completely stops pumping all at once, like her lungs are suddenly full of air but she can’t figure out how to breathe it because all she knows it this. All she wants to know is _this._ Lena’s lips, and her hands, and her tongue… _Rao her tongue_.

Then there’s a whoosh.

A literal, wind blowing through her hair whoosh.

She pulls away to find Lara gone and the room empty beyond Alex and Sam staring at the two of them with wide eyes - Alex’s a little too full of laughter to mean anything good. “You went pretty hard on that very public kiss.”

“I thought everyone would forget it.” She figured privacy didn’t matter when everyone was going to have their minds wiped. _When everyone had their minds wiped_ … Kara looks at Lena, still wrapped in her arms and not bothering to pay attention to anyone in the room beyond Kara, beyond her lips to be more precise. The tunnel vision makes Kara feel a little weak at the knees.

“Part of me wishes we did,” Alex jokes but she smiles as she clears the room, dragging Sam and her comment about ‘practicing safe sex’ out with her.

“Looks like you’re not off the hook about the Supergirl thing. Or this,” Lena says, thumb running along Kara’s bottom lip where there’s no doubt a red-stain courtesy of perfectly applied lipstick. She can feel it coating the skin. She can only think of one thing she’d like more on it. She can pretty much only think about that thing. She’s really like to do that one thing again soon.

“Good. I want to be on the hook. Every day remember. Forever.”

“Forever’s a long time. I better start a journal with all these questions,” Lena jokes, a little too seriously before pressing a chaste kiss to Kara’s lips. “ _Oh_ , and it’s pretty close to being more for me too, by the way.”

(Pretty close is an understatement.

Lena fills her entire apartment with flowers by the end of the week.

It’s kind of amazing).

* * *

 

“We did it!”

“And on the exact day in mom’s journal because I’m amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah, well done. You really have to punch me so hard though? I wasn’t actually attempting to destroy your entire bloodline by winding your mom.”

“It’s not my fault the faux evil villain thing was really working for you. I got a little distracted, maybe forgot to pull the punch a bit at the end.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“ _Have you seen what I was born from?!_ ”


End file.
